Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "Juggalo" Review

Shake gets touched by an angel, and he's not happy about it.

If you're wondering where the episode title "Juggalo" came from, it's a term used to refer to fans of the Insane Clown Posse. You would think that would mean ICP would have a prominent role in this one, but their cameo is very brief, and sadly not very amusing.

Shake kills a dude while up to his usual shenanigans. This time, a poor gentleman dies because Shake wants to throw stuff off a freeway overpass. But the guy comes back as an angel that makes Shake do some good deeds. Some parts of this are mildly funny, like Shake's short trips to hell as punishment, but a lot of the material comes from Shake being forced to do chores for Carl. It was nice to see Carl's car "2 Wycked" back in the mix after a long absence.

So Shake goes all goth emo clown crazy in order to destroy his angel. He was guided by his new life coach, 14-year-old "Neilzebub" (a nickname based on the demon Beelzebub). This part of the plot does not really go anywhere notable. Neil and his friends don't add much to the story, and Shake's various piercings and makeup don't make for a good sight gag. But I was pleasantly surprised when Shake just gets fed up with the whole thing and blows his head off with a shotgun. This forces Insane Clown Posse to appear on trial for subliminal lyrics or something, similar to what Judas Priest had to go through. It's a really short cameo for ICP, and their fire-breathing abilities didn't impress me as much as their readings of books to the sick, which was one of the few times I actually laughed during this episode.

One thing I really disliked was the "angel diarrhea" that kept our angel dude conveniently distracted while Shake searched for a way to get rid of him. I can forgive the fact that it's a stupid plot device, since this is ATHF and such things are expected, but I didn't like that the show had to resort to such random toilet humor. I've always liked ATHF's ability to be outrageously funny without relying on comedy crutches like poop jokes too much. Sure, the show has used the occasional toilet joke before (like when Frylock built a high powered toilet that ended up wrecking Carl's body), but for the most part the jokes from previous seasons were really original and I miss that.

The story ends with Shake, in Hell, having to wash 2 Wycked, an appropriate torture for all eternity. But, this was without a doubt a poor episode. The concept wasn't that great, and although a weak concept can sometimes be carried by great writing, that wasn't the case here. At its best this episode was mildly amusing, at its worst it was utterly boring. I'm starting to think the writers are just arranging cameo appearances with bands they like, and then fabricating ridiculous stories to fit the bands in, rather than writing an actual good episode.